Lion Sales Top One Million on First Day

By Bryan Chaffin

Jul 21st, 2011 6:40 PM EDT

Apple announced Thursday that sales of OS X 10.7 Lion topped the one million mark on Wednesday, the first day of availability. Lion is only available through the Mac App Store, and at US$29.99, that means Apple has added another $30 million to its coffers (you know, because Apple was running short on cash).

“Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a statement. “Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.”

Lion was introduced to the world in October of 2010 during Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event, and its release marks many turning points in the Mac operating system’s course.

It’s the first Mac OS to not have “Mac” in the name (though Apple itself mixes up its own nomenclature frequently and calls it Mac OS X Lion as often as OS X Lion).

It’s the first Mac operating system to incorporate traits from iOS (once called iPhone OS), including full screen software and major integration of multigestures developed for iOS.

It’s the first Mac OS to be sold as a download only, with no physical media available (for now — a USB thumb drive version will be offered later this year).

It’s the first Mac OS to install its own recovery partition on target Macs.

It’s the first Mac OS to de-emphasize The Finder, the concept that first set the original Mac apart from everything else back in 1984.